


Erosion

by sleepyclementine



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Elvhenan, Arbor Wilds, Elvhenan, Elvhenan Culture and Customs, Gen, Mythal - mentioned only, Pre-Inquisition, Relationship Inequality, Temple of Mythal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-18
Updated: 2018-09-18
Packaged: 2019-07-13 20:59:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16025876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleepyclementine/pseuds/sleepyclementine
Summary: Abelas prays for his goddess still, though she has passed where none can follow.  He knows her spirit, but endures without.





	Erosion

He communes with his goddess in silence.

His prayers sing from the tapered edges of his blade, conjured energy condensed into cutting spirit, each muscular pull and torsion sensed like an infinity in the hyper-aware. He weeps benedictions from his pores. Sweat collects in the hollow of his throat, trickles like oil beneath the metal plate of his armor, beads in the furrows of brows knitted in essential focus. His gratitude looks a grimace, but in battle, he is touched by the the breath of clarity. 

He knows Mythal best when he keeps to her path. He strains for her answer in the sharp inhalations between each arc of his weapon, in the waiting static just after the crackle and flow of his magic shrieks through the web of worlds. He waits for her in the spaces between heartbeats. He knows her hymns and theodicies, has spent a lifetime in negation of self, and extends all his being into a manifestation of her justice in all the spheres he has ever touched. He loves her as he loves the Vir’Abelasan: the infinity pressed into the spaces of the finite, respected, ineffable, feared, adored. The love of a deity is a terrible thing, consuming and splendid, platonic pathways lingering in the echoes of the wisdom she has shared with the People. 

He senses her still, in the drooping jungle trees, the dense moisture of the fetid tropical air. He breathes and inhales the memory of her, and sees her shadow cast in the impressions of the Veilfire. But he knows they are dying; his memory of her, his People, and the empty beings in the edges of his vision who glint gold and bronze, ghosts just like him. 

And so Sorrow prays more fervently, more desperately, in each waning century. His unspoken invocations metamorphose into dirges and laments. And he waits for his goddess to answer.


End file.
